Shortly after moving to San Diego in mid-2021, I discovered a nearby community garden. I put my name on a waiting list for a plot, then made frequent visits to the 45-plot garden to see what was growing in others’ spaces. As the weather cooled and days shortened, I watched others’ cool weather crops take hold. Being someone who’d never before gardened in a frost-free area, I marveled. During my first Southern California “winter,” lots of cabbages and broccoli came to maturity. Come February, I was able to rent a seven by twelve foot raised bed for the next gardening year, starting March 1. The following winter, I had my own Brussels sprouts plus lettuce and arugula in January and February. What a treat!
Fellow community gardeners often share chores, pinch-hitting for each other during vacations or other interruptions. So this past April, I arranged with a friend whose plots are near mine to water when needed while my husband and I took an extended trip out of the country. I returned in June to find my plot filled to overflowing.
After I trimmed back excess growth, I discovered that the seedling celery plants I’d put out just before I left had by mid-June matured and gone to seed. Plants were nearly shoulder high. The two pear tomato plants, barely leafed out when I’d planted them, had outgrown their tomato cages and were sprawling across the plot’s middle.
The biggest surprise, though, was a set of extensive vines spilling over all the plot’s edges. It took me a while to identify them. I hadn’t planted squash, although the previous year I’d been gifted with a single volunteer courtesy of a local bird. These plants had large squash-like leaves, with some cream-colored smallish fruit on the ground. My friend hadn’t wanted to remove them, since she wasn’t sure whether or not they were weeds.
After a couple of internet searches, I was pretty sure that the mystery vines were pumpkins. I hadn’t intentionally planted pumpkins, either. There were too many of these to have been gifts of the birds, though. Thinking back, I remembered that we’d eaten a fair amount of grocery store pumpkin the previous autumn. I’d put excess pulp and seeds into my backyard compost tumbler, then used the finished compost to fertilize my plot in the spring. Apparently the compost hadn’t ever gotten hot enough to kill the pumpkin seeds.
My friend and I were bemused and amused at my volunteer crop. The internet advised keeping the vines from sprawling too much, selecting the largest fruits to nurture, but clipping and discarding the smaller ones. My earliest pumpkins were ready for harvest in August. By the time pumpkin harvest was over in September, I’d gotten several traditionally skinned orange pumpkins, plus another set with cream to pale green outsides. I gave away a few to a local soup kitchen. I experimented with one of the medium-sized pale-skinned pumpkins, making its yellow-orange flesh into curries and custards to eat at home.
The largest of this year’s pumpkins weighs about 10 pounds. It’s in temporary storage, along with half a dozen others, eventually to be turned into pies, purees, and curried soups during cool weather. Compared with record-setting pumpkins, it is a midget. Per a recent internet search, the world’s heaviest pumpkin was grown in Belgium in 2016—it weighed a whopping 2,624 pounds. The heaviest U.S. pumpkin grew in New Hampshire, tipping the scales at 2,528 pounds. Ohio holds the record for biggest pumpkin pie—over 20 feet in diameter, weighing 3,699 pounds. California, though our nation’s top agricultural state, lags well behind top-ranked Illinois and second place Texas in pumpkin poundage. Still, I am glad I have 50+ pounds of pumpkin flesh to help us vary our diet during upcoming cool weather.
On reflection, though, I think I’ll put any pumpkin seeds from this year’s crop into the municipal compost rather than my backyard tumbler. That way, I’ll reduce the chances of more “accidents” in next year’s plot.
Jinny's Occasional Poems 